Jobs coming to life?

[Robert A Whit]

4658

[Kathianne]

There's reasons that Obama's approval ratings are plummeting:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-08/february-multiple-jobholders-rose-record-full-timers-dropped-part-timers-increased


When it comes to government data, every silver lining has a cloud. Sure enough even today's NFP number, which on the surface was quite acceptable, had its share of thorny issues.

Those who track the quality composition of the jobs, as opposed to just the quantity, will know that the part and full-time jobs breakdown has long been a major issue. And not unexpectedly, in February according to the Household Survey (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t09.htm), the number of full-time jobs declined by 77K from 115,918 to 115,841. The offset: a jump in part-time workers which rose from 27,467 to 27,569, or 102K. Part-time jobs, for those who are unaware, are "jobs" only in the broadest of definitions.

But the most surprising development in February from a quality standpoint was that the number of multiple job-holders rose by a massive 340K, which just happens to be a record. One wonders: how many actual people got new jobs, as opposed to how many qualified single individuals ended up getting more than one job in February in order to boost that much needed weekly income to sustainable levels.

ource: BLS (http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab9.htm)

[Kathianne]

A usually fair source:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2013/0308/Unemployment-rate-drops-to-7.7-percent.-How-real-is-job-market-progress


...

But an important caveat is worth highlighting: The drop in joblessness in February – from 7.9 percent in January – came partly for the “wrong” reason. Although part of the improvement came from new hiring, a big factor was a rise in the number of adults not looking for work.


The Labor Department itself didn’t play up the jobless-rate shift, saying in its press release that the unemployment rate “has shown little improvement, on net, since September 2012.”

Here’s how the math worked for this past month:


The Labor Department’s survey of households found that 170,000 more people were working. (A separate survey, of employers, found that payrolls expanded by 236,000 positions.) So that helped.


But the survey of households also found that, despite the number of working-age civilians rising by 165,000, the labor force shrank in size instead of growing. Some 130,000 fewer people were working or looking for work in February.


Some of the work-force shrinkage reflects people reaching retirement. But a good bit relates to the still-weak character of the job market.


“As job growth accelerates and people believe there are job opportunities, the labor force should expand,” said economist Michelle Meyer at Bank of America (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Bank+of+America+Corporation) Merrill Lynch (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Merrill+Lynch+%26+Co.+Inc.), in a jobs analysis Friday. She says that could make the unemployment rate “sticky” – not prone to decline quickly.


In all, some 12 million people are officially counted as unemployed. The ratio of employed people, as a share of the working-age civilian population, held unchanged in February at 58.6 percent.

...

[Robert A Whit]

A lot of good points were included in the above two posts. And just like that one might think that PBS would have informed us. Wait, surely ABC or CBS would have huh?

I shall see tonight if NBC brings up the things in those articles.

Good work on the part of the above poster.

[fj1200]

4658

Not by that graph.